[IxDA Discuss] Number of search results to display

[Cagwin, Virginia]

My team and I are currently designing a desktop application that
contains a search. I have been trying to find out what the magic number
is for displaying search results before the user finally gives up and
enters more criteria to narrow the results. More than likely, these
users know exactly what they are searching for and probably would not
return a list of 10,000 results, but we have decided that we wouldn't
prevent them from doing this.
 
Our current solution is to display "x" number of results, but inform
them that "x" was found. Does anyone know the magic #? Have other
suggestions that do not include pagination?
 
Virginia
 
P.S. I did a search in the discussion archives to see if this was
already talked about and didn't see anything. Please forgive me if this
has already been discussed.